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When a public agency engages in settlement negotiations, the records of those talks should be
available to the public, said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine.

His comments, made in an interview yesterday, come as American Electric Power and several other
groups or businesses attempt to block a public-records request before the Public Utilities
Commission of Ohio.

The Dispatch asked on Sept. 13 for documents related to settlement talks on the AEP rate
proposal that is being considered by the PUCO. AEP and about 10 other companies and organizations
signed a request to block release of the records.

“Public-record law must be liberally interpreted in favor of disclosure,” DeWine said yesterday.
“Any exceptions in the law that permit certain types of records to be withheld ... must be very
narrowly construed.”

His office serves as legal counsel to the PUCO. He declined to comment about the specifics of
the documents request in the AEP rate case, but his comments indicate that any company must meet a
high standard if it wants to shield documents from public view.

“Settlement communications at any state agency, including the PUCO, must be disclosed unless
there’s a clear exception,” he said.

An AEP spokeswoman had no comment other than to note that the company is only one of about 10
companies or organizations that co-signed the request to block records. Among the others are the
Ohio Manufacturers’ Association, the Ohio Hospital Association and the Environmental Law and Policy
Center.

Since Sept. 13,
TheDispatch has received some documents from the PUCO, but the agency has withheld others
while it reviews whether some records fall under exceptions to the public-records law.

Last Friday, AEP and the other groups filed a motion asking the PUCO to block the release of
records related to negotiations involving the agency that took place in August and September.

An attorney for AEP argued that settlement discussions are understood to be confidential, and
that making them public would have “dire practical consequences in pending and future matters
before the commission and elsewhere.”

AEP is asserting that records from the negotiations include trade secrets. DeWine indicated that
such an assertion must be backed with convincing evidence.

The negotiations over the rate plan led to a Sept. 7 agreement between more than a dozen parties
and the PUCO staff. Under this latest version of the proposal, central Ohio residential electricity
customers would see a small decrease in rates next year followed by increases in 2013 and 2014. The
proposal now will go to the PUCO board for a vote, which likely will happen in the next few
months.

The sides have chosen to resolve the case through a negotiated settlement, a process that gives
the PUCO board less leeway to make changes. Records from the negotiations would shed light on how
the deal was crafted and give insight on several facets that might have an effect on utility bills
for years to come.

While many groups support the rate plan, there are also some high-profile opponents, including
the Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel, Ohio Partners for Affordable Energy, Industrial Energy
Users-Ohio and FirstEnergy.

A PUCO administrative-law judge likely will rule on the public-records issue sometime in the
next few weeks.